Swamplings Art Thread - comments greatly appreciated

[Dunno]

Lol...? How can you change a torch into molotov cocktail...? Let's not forget they are simple goblins, I thought these kinds of projectiles are reserved for dwarves... even if, molotov would be more of a ranged attack. Although I must say, this idea sounds cool. What if they have both torches as fire melee and molotovs as fire ranged? IMHO, it would really "heat" things up

[boru]

Lol...? How can you change a torch into molotov cocktail...?

Lol, I'm the campaign creator. If I don't do it, who will?

I need to rethink this unit entirely. Adding another attack to a unit that already has three kinds of attack is okay but it could end up overpowered and more importantly, it doesn't really fix the problem.
It's still a stealth unit with a flaming torch, something doesn't add up. Maybe I'll remove nightstalk and give him something else, maybe charge?

Dunno, it may take me a while to decide on this. So if you want to try your hand at another unit instead, try the Cutthroat.

[Dunno]

Alright! Actually, I've had an idea for Cutthroat for a longer while and I'll gladly see how it looks!

[Dunno]

Ok, here is my first attempt at cutthroat. I know of two things I need to fix: I messed up the shadow again (at least I found out what I do wrong, thanks to your helpful link, so it's no big issue) and this sack looks about... out of place. Like it's levitating instead of being held. Basically, I've frankensteined head, wolf and sack to avoid blobs of black

[boru]

Ok, here is my first attempt at cutthroat. I know of two things I need to fix: I messed up the shadow again (at least I found out what I do wrong, thanks to your helpful link, so it's no big issue) and this sack looks about... out of place. Like it's levitating instead of being held. Basically, I've frankensteined head, wolf and sack to avoid blobs of black

The sack is primarily a color brightness issue. Lighter colors tend to appear closer than darker ones. Try adjusting the brightness. Also, if the gobo was holding the sack it would help a lot. You also might need to resize the sack slightly, not certain if that is absolutely necessary but the scale is a bit out of proportion.

[Dunno]

Right, I've decided to put up two pngs- one with normal sack and the other with slightly resized sack. In both, I've darkened the sack and tried to make it look as if it's being held.

[homunculus]

Yeah, the cutthroat is a super powerful unit, especially against a horde of zombies.
Made me think that, even if it does get a new attack, maybe refreshing the movement is bit overdone.

Ok, here is my first attempt at cutthroat. I know of two things I need to fix: I messed up the shadow again (at least I found out what I do wrong, thanks to your helpful link, so it's no big issue) and this sack looks about... out of place. Like it's levitating instead of being held. Basically, I've frankensteined head, wolf and sack to avoid blobs of black

EDIT: Removed the suggestion to flip the sack, because I am not sure I read it correctly, maybe it just blended with some colors in the rest of the image.
In the later versions the sack seems to have become a bit invisible, I think it might need more contrast.
As for recoloring things, sprites are made with hard brushes with a limited palette of colors, so this should mean that you can select by color and adjust the colors quite comfortably, one by one, to whatever feels right.
That is, painting over the head with pure black, or else frakensteining, are not the only options.
(but anyway, ask boru)

[boru]

Yeah, the cutthroat is a super powerful unit, especially against a horde of zombies.
Made me think that, even if it does get a new attack, maybe refreshing the movement is bit overdone.

Maybe a bit. The pillager is pretty overpowered for level 2, which probably why there is no mainline level up for the unit. Cutthroat has no slow attack and no ranged attack, but he does have this awesome rampage attack. It's up to the player to decide if he wants to give all that xp to a level 3 unit or if he wants to shepherd his level 1's to increase overall power.

In the later versions the sack seems to have become a bit invisible, I think it might need more contrast.
And, it seems to me that you might need to flip the sack horizontally, because the shading right now seems to be from light from the left, while the wesnoth standard is, afaik, light from the right (that is, if the unit is facing south-east).
As for recoloring things, sprites are made with hard brushes with a limited palette of colors, so this should mean that you can select by color and adjust the colors quite comfortably, one by one, to whatever feels right.
That is, painting over the head with pure black, or else frakensteining, are not the only options.
(but anyway, ask boru)

Good advice overall. Yes, the sack is now blending in with the color of the wolf, so try some different things with hue or contrast. And it should go without saying, frankensteining can be a jumping-off point for you to get more experimental, so don't be scared to try something unexpected.

Here's an updated unit tree. I'm not posting this because of an eagerness to throw out all the mainline placeholders and put in a bunch of single sprite frankensteins. Quality takes time and I'm fine with that. My goal is to eventually have all original sprites of the same high quality as the leader branch.

[boru]

I've been working on a mappenstein, or maybe it's a frankenmap, of the Swamplings quadrant of the Old Continent. Here it is-- as always, comments are greatly appreciated.

[8680]

One problem: it wouldn't have been olde then. (Assuming this is set before the emigration of the Wesfolk.)

[boru]

The timeline places the Wesfolk migration at 200BW and this campaign is set in 400BW, so that's a good point, a cartographer of that day would have some other name for the continent. On the other hand, no one is playing the campaign in 400BW so the map just might come from a later era. In fact, let's say it did.

[Dunno]

Hey it's awesome, man! I don't mean to be picky, but the north east part seems to be too much square... I'd make it shorter and round it a bit after the mountains.
Sorry, I haven't replied with cutthroat lately. I just lack ideas for a remake... I you want, I could just work more on the sack version, and make a final version of it. And are you sure you're ok with the "retro" wolf?

[boru]

Thanks for the crit, I'll look at the coast again but I'm not sure I have the skill to round it convincingly-- the problem comes from using a base map that's really intended for a continent and using it for a much smaller area.

I don't really think you're near a final version for the cutthroat. Even as a frankenstein, it needs to look like a level higher than the pillager, which is usually achieved by adding regalia and other "bling." The more I think about it, telling you to use the vintage icon was a mistake, as much because of improvements to the gobo's armor and torch as well as the wolf. In 1.9, the advancement from new pillager to vintage cutthroat would be disappointing. We need to remember the unit has this awesome Rampage ability--he needs to look more menacing than level two, he's our army's angel of death. No matter what happens with the purse, it isn't enough. The unit should look darker, like an assassin. His wolf could be darker too.

pillager-notes.png (3.53 KiB) Viewed 3306 times

I spent last night cobbling together some tiny map icons. Still very much a work in progress, but here's what I got so far:

icons.png (7.23 KiB) Viewed 3306 times

[Dunno]

Hi, here's my recent attempt at cutthroat:

cutthroat2.png (6.76 KiB) Viewed 3227 times

It's still unfinished: I feel like he should hold something in his right hand, but I'm not sure what. I could retry with sack perhaps, or try something different (for a short while I was thinking about freshly cut off head with dripping blood, too bad it's NSFK ). How do you like my recolor of the wolf and armor? I still haven't redone his torch, only recolored it. Thanks for feedback, I hope it's better than previous!

P.S: Can he be holding a dagger or a sickle? He has to cut heads off with something, you know

[boru]

Good progress so far. We lost some of the contrast from the original sprite, you may want to go in there and add some highlights to the dark areas and maybe experiment with a darker gray on the skulls. Other than that, it's a good recolor job.

After thinking about your suggestion, a unit called the Cutthroat really ought to have a blade of some sort. (I'm wondering if he should have kept the net and ditched the torch instead?) The wolf already has blade attack but I suppose I can take that away and give the gobo a kama (it looks like a one-handed scythe). There's a few videos of guys twirling and flipping them, which would make a great idle animation someday. You should be able to easily find source photos on wikipedia and videos on youtube.